Parched (10 page)

She shakes her head in confusion. “What's
poo-rita
?”

I shake my head, trying to arrange my thoughts. “It's not important. Look. All
this
exists because people out there are dying and the Trust is letting it happen. They're
making
it happen.”

Izzy rolls her eyes. “Don't be so dramatic. It's not that bad.”

“I'm telling you it is,” I explain incredulously. “
I was there
. We have to do something about it.”

“Do something about it?” Izzy repeats scornfully. “What are you going to do, Tess?”

I shake my head, caught out. “I . . . I don't know. I only know I have to change things.”

Izzy looks at me with gentle pity. She sighs, and softens her voice. “Tess, this is just the way things worked out. We ended up the lucky ones.” She puts one hand on my arm and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Look, I'm not totally heartless. I care about the Badlands, sure I do. But we're in Eden and they're out there. You can't change that. So you may as well just enjoy it.”

I twist my arm out of her grasp.

Izzy just stares at me. I know she doesn't care. I know because I didn't used to either.

Then, after a few moments, Izzy says in a voice as small as a lady-bug, “I feel like I don't even know you anymore.”

Suddenly, I am overcome with exhaustion. “I feel like I don't know me either,” I say blankly. I sink down onto the wooden bench and lean my head back against the railing. A family of spider monkeys swings through the tops of the tall trees above me, a canopy of endless, tangled green.

Izzy sits down next to me. “
I
know you,” she says. “The old you. Tess Rockwood: fun and loyal and up for anything.
Tess Rockwood:
smart, way smarter than me.” She draws in a deep breath, gaze dropping to the wooden walkway under our feet. “I've been thinking a lot about you since you left.” Her eyes find mine again. “Maybe I stopped you from doing stuff you wanted to do?”

“What stuff?” I ask.

She shakes her head, overwhelmed. “I don't know, all that science stuff. You were always so into it. Maybe I was . . . mean about it, sometimes?”

I'm stunned. Izzy doesn't apologize, and more importantly, I'd always thought she had little to no self-awareness.

“Maybe,” I say hesitantly.

She takes both my hands with hers. “I won't be like that anymore. I'll be . . . whatever, supportive. Just forget the Badlands, Tess. Please. I missed you so much.”

I always thought Izzy was the most rebellious person I'd ever met. But now I see that we weren't rebels at all. I pull my hands gently out of hers. “I'm sorry,” I say. “I can't.”

When I get up to leave, Izzy doesn't try to stop me.

When
I wave my new ID over the scanner next to the front door, it swings open with a chime. Abel either forgot to take me off his home access list or recently added me back on. I'm betting it's the former. The smell of rich and pungent cooking greets me as I wander down the hallway. “Hello? Uncle A?”

Kimiko whizzes out from the kitchen. “Good evening, Tessendra.”

“It's Tess,” I tell the fembot curtly. “Only my family calls me Tessendra, and you ain't—”

But my words are cut off by the sight of the dining room table. It looks ready to host Gyan himself. Abel's best silver cutlery spreads out from gleaming china plates. White linen napkins nestle inside red mechanical bolts that have been upcycled as hip napkin rings. Curls of butter sit in shallow glass dishes made from the bottoms of wine bottles. A large white candleholder carved with intricate floral detail holds no less than seven handmade candles. They flicker gently in the middle of the table, making everything feel positively regal.

“Tess!” Abel glances up from a news stream he's watching and quickly lowers the volume with his eyes. His face is gray with exhaustion, but the sight of me inspires a smile that looks genuine. “You're just in time. You didn't forget about dinner, did you?”

I had. But the smell of food cooking makes my stomach rumble loud enough for us to both hear and I realize I haven't eaten since breakfast. Dinner sounds pretty good right about now. “Course not,” I tell him, before gesturing vaguely in the direction of my room. “I'm just going to . . . wash up.”

In the darkness, my yellow room looks like it's painted in black and white and shades of gray. I sink down on the edge of my mattress, grateful for the quiet. It's hard to believe it's only been twenty-four hours
since I crossed back. I lie back on the bed and let my body settle into the softness. I wish it could pull me under.

Things aren't exactly on track. My plan to not see Abel? Fail. Plan to become an Edenite again? Double fail. Plan to reconnect with Izzy? Triple times a million fail.

Did I overreact with Iz? Was she right, that this is just the way things are? Is Kudzu a real alternative or just a bunch of deluded kids on a one-way street to being banished?

Kudzu. I stood Ling up today. I picture her confusion, then her anger. The scratch she gave me is still buried under my mattress. I wonder where the dead zone is. Maybe I should check.

I can tell she's sent me more than one of those holos because of the sound: a menagerie of beeps and chirrups. When I smooth it open, I'm accosted by half a dozen baby animals. A feather-tailed squirrel races up my arm. An owl swoops around my head while a goofy-looking badger ambles onto my thigh, all talking to me at once.

“Meet behind the old filtration plant in Lakeside, thirteen-hundred hours.”

“Where are you? Meet behind the old filtration plant.”

“Tess, is something wrong?”

“It's sixteen-hundred. I'm leaving.”

And then, delivered from the same adorable blue-and-yellow baby bird Ling first used, the final message: “You'll regret this.”

The holos all disappear, leaving me alone in the dark.

You'll regret this
. Is it a threat? Is Kudzu coming after me? Or does she just mean my own conscience will punish me? Somehow, that prospect feels even worse.

“Tess!” Abel's voice floats up from downstairs.

Ling said this scratch was off-cycle. That means I can use it without being recorded. Even if I never see Kudzu again, I am still curious about Abel and Aevum. I don't even know what that word means.
Magnus
is Latin for “great;” the name of ancient kings, powerful dukes, and noble saints of the past. But
aevum?
I don't even know if it's a real word.

I could enter the streams to find out.

“Tess?”

“Just a minute!” I call back.

The gold scratch glows bright, ready for action. I take a deep breath. Then, in a quiet, clear voice, I open the streams. “Show me
aevum
.”

The streams burst into light around me, a dense but lovely web
of objects and text and information. The holo of a smiling, neatly presented woman settles in front of me. Her tone is modulated and pleasant. “
Aevum
, Latin, meaning ‘age' or ‘everlasting time.' ” As she speaks, separate bubbles appear to show me the word, spinning out into the meanings that continue to load. I catch unfamiliar words like
aeon
and
aeviternity
. “Ancient philosophers believed the aevum was the temporal experience of angels and celestial beings,” the woman continues. “Societies of the past believed that unlike God, who experienced time as infinite, and humankind, who experienced time as finite, the aevum was how angels experienced time and the world.” The woman continues to talk as the streams spin and whirl to show me angels—some rosy-cheeked cherubs who loll languidly, some tortured-looking men with eyes raised to their maker above.

I'm not used to being in the streams off-cycle. If I'd been on-cycle, I'd already have dozens of people sharing this with me; my friends trying to pull me into a concert or a random party, or strangers wanting to chat about all this weird medieval stuff. Everyone's avatars would be bouncing and spinning around me—Izzy's was a purring kitten. Mine was a tiny thunderstorm, complete with lightning and rolling black clouds. Being off-cycle feels a little lonely. But it also feels safe.

Now original texts scroll before me. Black letters squash together unevenly, primitive in their awkward imperfection. The language is foreign to me, but
aevum
is helpfully highlighted with a soft glow. I wave my hand over the pages. The woman flickers for a moment, then starts explaining. “Here you see the first mention of the aevum in a treatise written in the thirteenth century by the saint Albertus Magnus—”

What? I swish my fingers to start it again. But I didn't mishear. Albertus
Magnus
.

“Tess!” Abel's voice rings out for the third time, shorter and more annoyed.

“Coming!” I call impatiently.

Aevum is how angels are supposed to experience the world. According to myth, angels are special, powerful, inhuman. All words that could be applied to artilects.

I hate to admit it but the idea of Aevum as the code name for an artilect is Abel to a tee. Clever, cerebral, based in the classics. Plus the fact it was created by someone called Magnus, that it
came from
Magnus, just as the second attempt would inevitably be born from the first. The connection seems inevitable.

“Tess.” He's right outside my door. Quick as a flash, I scrunch the scratch into a ball. The aevum stream disappears a split second before Abel sticks his head into my room. “Dinner's ready.”

Abel smiles at me from across the table, pulling the napkin from its red-bolt ring and shaking it out over his lap. “So, what did you get up to with Izzadore?”

“I, ah, got some clothes,” I say. “And dyed my hair.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, squinting at it. “Very fetching.” I am 100 percent sure he cannot make out any noticeable difference.

“What about you?” I ask, toying with my fork. “How was your day?” A grimace flares across his face. “Trying.”

“Hard day at post-education?”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Hard day at post-education.”

Or a hard day at Simutech. I eye him, trying to work out if he's telling the truth.

“Speaking of education,” he says. “We'll have to reenroll you for your final year. It's very important you finish education before deciding on a work choice next year—”

“I'm not going back!” Back to education? To classes and homework and fresh-faced Edenites with no concept of how the world actually works? The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Abel frowns in disapproval. “I mean, not right now,” I backtrack. “I need a few weeks to get . . . reacquainted.”

My uncle looks as if he's about to disagree, but fortunately, the moment is interrupted by the arrival of Kimiko.

“Dinner is served,” the fembot announces, carefully placing our meals in front of us. “Wild mushroom risotto with tangled salad greens.”

Before me is an enormous mound of steaming risotto that smells like butter and garlic. Slices of crumbling golden cheese ooze in the soft, sticky rice. Next to the risotto is a clump of dressed arugula salad, dotted with cut cherry tomatoes and paper-thin slices of cucumber.

“I can't believe you remembered,” I mumble, eyes round and mouth watering. Mushroom risotto is my favorite meal, hands down. And what Kimiko has prepared looks like it could be the best I've ever tasted.

“I programmed her myself,” Abel says proudly.

I pick up my fork, unsure whether to savor every bite in a luxurious slowness or cram as much as I can in my mouth at once.

“I'm about to turn into an animal right about now,” I warn my uncle.

He chuckles, pleased. “Go for it.”

I aim my fork at the rice, about to strike, when I hear something. Distant yelling. I glance up. It's the news stream Abel was watching. Floating in the lounge room is a holo of a group of Badlanders. They are running as if their lives depend on it. Their faces are strained and terrible. My fork clatters to the table. “Kimiko, turn that up!”

The sound of the crisp news stream fills the room: “—was attacked today by illegal immigrants from the Badlands. More than thirty outlaws stormed the Northern Bridge border crossing—”

The Guider's voice fades in my ears as I stare at dozens of Badlanders racing across the empty bridge toward the white walls of Eden. Bare feet hit the concrete. Some leave stamps of blood. They are being chased by a dozen black-and-silver substitutes, running with inhuman speed. With a sharp charge of fear, I recognize them. “Quicks.”

Abel nods, face impassive. “Quicks.”

One of mom's colleagues in the Innovation department—a bald man with a turned-down mouth whom I referred to as Frog—was working on the design of these new substitutes before I left. I didn't like Frog and I didn't like the designs. I'm sure he only showed me the floating schematics to frighten me.

At six feet tall, with two arms and two legs, they're the most lifelike of any substitute I've ever seen. Unlike Kimiko, who looks cute and helpful, these powerful substitutes are terrifying. Their eyes gleam bloodred. They move like lightning. They are meant for disaster relief—even though there hasn't been a natural disaster in decades, Eden isn't immune to house fires or buzzcar crashes. Quicks are supposed to help people, and they do it, as their name suggests, quickly.

It looks like border patrol also falls into their skill set.

The Quicks overtake the Badlanders on the bridge. Their metal bodies interlock to form a barrier, an impenetrable fence of black and silver. The Badlanders are at an impasse. Before any of them can begin climbing over the solid wall of Quicks, a dozen Tranquils catch up. The first brings his baton down hard on a man's leg. A bloody shard of bone sticks through the shin. Another Tranq has his gloved hand around a woman's throat while she claws at it in horror, choking for breath. My hand clamps over my mouth, stifling a sharp cry. She looks like a younger version of Mileka.